7 Ways to ENHANCE YOUR WEBINAR PROMOTIONS - The … · 2016-04-08 · talk about your event in a completely different way. A well-written plaintext email can make the reader think

7 Ways to

ENHANCE YOUR WEBINAR PROMOTIONS

27 WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR WEBINAR PROMOTIONS

THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL WEBINARS

You’ve got a great topic. Your speaker is energetic and

engaging. Your presentation is knock-it-out-of-the-park

gorgeous. Now you just need one thing: an audience.

When we ask marketers what they consider the hardest

part of delivering a successful webinar, the answer

is clear:

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO DELIVERING A SUCCESSFUL WEBINAR?

Driving registration is the biggest obstacle to webinar

success. After all, any webinar’s target audience is

made up of people with busy schedules, who need a

compelling reason to carve out a spare hour in the middle

of the day. Getting more people to sign up for your

webinar is achievable, but it requires catching them at a

moment when they’re receptive and hitting them with a

message that resonates.

SOUNDS DOABLE, RIGHT? OF COURSE IT IS.

Results: ON24 Benchmarks webinar poll

DRIVING REGISTRATION

PROVIDING AN ENGAGING WEBINAR EXPERIENCE

EXTENDING THE LIFE/VALUE OF YOUR WEBINARS

GETTING FEEDBACK FROM ATTENDEES

42.9%

10.5%

30.5%

16.2%

DRIVING REGISTRATION


ONE LINE, ONE CHANCE1As marketers, we have to be really effective at capturing

somebody’s imagination in a single line. When it comes to

webinars, you have two chances to do that:

WEBINAR TITLEThe best webinar titles solve problems and address pain-

points, letting the prospect know they’re getting useful,

valuable advice that will help them solve specific problems.

Here are a few examples of successful titles:

• “10 Common ________ Mistakes”

• “7 Keys to Successful ________”

• “5 Best Practices for________”

• “How to Optimize________”

EMAIL SUBJECT LINEGreat email subject lines either promise change or titillate

the reader — or, even better, both. Most importantly, the

best email subject lines are short, so they won’t get cut off

in the recipient’s inbox. Here are some effective subject

line strategies:

• The compelling question “How effective is your ________?”;

“Could you be getting more from ______?”

• The webinar title “Webinar: 10 Tips for ________”

• The bottom-line benefit “This email will help you ________”;

“Keep reading to boost your ________”

TIPTRY EMAIL SUBJECT LINES

THAT OFFER CHANGE OF THE

STATUS QUO

TIP NUMBERS IN THE TITLE (E.G., “5

TIPS FOR…”) LET PEOPLE KNOW

THAT THERE’S SUBSTANCE TO

YOUR WEBINAR


GET YOUR BODY IN SHAPE2The body of your promotional email needs to be lean

and mean: 1–2 paragraphs, a few hard-hitting bullets

and a clear call to action. Many email clients, including

Gmail and Outlook, let the recipient preview the opening

line before they even open the email. You want to get

heads nodding with your very first sentence. The rest of

the body copy should be clear and compelling, and the

bullets need to tease the webinar content so people can’t

wait to hear more.

When it comes to imagery, you want the title of the

webinar and the “Register Now” button to pop. If you use

photography in your masthead, try to avoid dull stock

images that show up in other company’s emails. If you

include photos with your speaker bios, make sure the

photos are recent.

Finally, a substantial chunk of your audience will be

checking their email on iPhone (27 percent), iPad (12

percent) or Android (7 percent), so make sure that your

HTML email templates are optimized for mobile viewing.1

ANATOMY OF AN EMAIL

• Clear title and strong graphic

• First line that grabs the reader

• Short and to-the-point message

• Bullets that tease webinar content

• CTA that shows value of attending

• Clear, easy-to-find “Register Now” button

TIPOPTIMIZE EMAILS FOR

MOBILE VIEWING

1Smart Insights, Email marketing statistics 2015


PROMOTE FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES3Sending the same message in the same format with the

same subject line over and over is not an effective way to

grab attention or drive registration. If you want to catch

people in a moment of receptivity with a message that

resonates, you’ll have to try different things. Vary your

language and try pitching your webinar from different

angles. Since not everyone responds to the same formats,

send both HTML and plaintext emails. Send emails on

different days of the week at different times of day to have

the best chance of catching them at the right moment.

HOW MANY EMAILS DO YOU TYPICALLY SEND OUT FOR EACH WEBINAR?

HTML EMAILSWhen you want complete control over how an email

looks, HTML is the way to go. A fully formatted HTML email

can be beautiful and eye-catching, and it’s a great way to

incorporate your brand look and feel into an email.

PLAINTEXT EMAILSSend a plaintext email when you want the recipient to feel

like they’re getting a personal message. Plaintext gives an

email a more casual tone, which gives you an opportunity to

talk about your event in a completely different way. A well-

written plaintext email can make the reader think that you

actually wrote them a personal email, which can be

very effective.

Data from 7 Ways to Enhance Your Webinar Promotions webinar, May 13, 2014

1 EMAIL

2 EMAILS

3 EMAILS

4 EMAILS

5+ EMAILS

5.2%

9.8%

4.1%

36.3%

44.6%


GET PERSONAL4As marketers, we already have a lot of information

about people in our CRM and marketing automation

software. Why not put that data to work? Look at

previous campaign responders and create custom

emails that present your webinar as a next logical step in

their communication with your company. You can also

leverage information about contacts’ titles or roles to

create custom messages for various segments in

your database.

Plaintext emails can be particularly effective when you’re

trying to appeal to a unique subset of your prospects.

Since plaintext feels more personal, it makes the recipient

feel like they’re getting a custom experience in their

relationship with your brand.

TIPLEAN ON CONTACT HISTORY

(AND YOUR MARKETING

AUTOMATION SOFTWARE) TO

PERSONALIZE MESSAGES


GET SOCIAL5Today, social media only represents a small portion of

webinar registration, but that percentage will improve as

we get better at social media marketing and as our social

footprints grow.

Social media can be an important tool for promoting

our events; we just have to get more creative with it.

Keep in mind that promotion on social media is not a

once-and-done proposition. You have to promote over

multiple days, using different messages every time, to

get attention. Here are some other tricks for successful

promotion on social media:

• Get creative Don’t just post the webinar title and a link. You can be

as creative in tweets as you are in emails. Publish some

funny posts, publish some direct posts, but whatever

you do, don’t use the same post more than once.

• Use hashtags A hashtag helps people follow the conversation and

subtly encourages them to join in. Pick a hashtag for

your event and use it in all your social promotions.

Then remind attendees of the hashtag during the

webinar itself and encourage them to post with that

tag throughout the event.

• Shorten links If you aren’t already, try Bitly or TinyURL to shorten

your links. Short links look better in a tweet, they’re

easier for the audience to use and follow, and they

give you additional options like custom links or

link tracking.

• Try different times If you posted on Monday morning, schedule your next

post on a Tuesday afternoon. Spreading out the timing

of your posts gives you a better chance to catch a

larger audience.

Social media can also be used to enable new registrants

to promote your event to their extended social networks.

Add social media buttons to confirmation pages so

people can share that they signed up — even if only a

small number of registrants do it, you’ve extended the

reach of your event.

TIPWHEN PROMOTING ON

SOCIAL MEDIA, MIX UP TIMES

AND MESSAGES

8

2ON24, Webinar Benchmarks Report, 2015 edition


START EARLY AND FINISH STRONG6Most webinars are promoted for only 7–14 days. However,

our benchmark data shows that over 26 percent of

registration occurs more than two weeks before the

event.2 Promotion cycles that don’t start until the week

before or week of an event leave a lot of registrants on

the table. If you only send two emails to promote your

webinar, make sure that one of them drops the day of or

the day before the event. If you send three emails, send

the first one two or three weeks before the event.

PROMOTIONAL CYCLE

When you’re planning your promotion schedule, don’t

just think about what you’re saying. Put aside some

energy to think about when you’re going to say it. A

successful promotional cadence for a webinar might look

something like this:

• Email 1: Full list ° Format: HTML (A/B test on subject line)

° Timing: 15 days before event

• Email 2: Full list ° Format: plaintext


• Email 3: Contacts who have responded to other campaigns ° Format: plaintext


• Email 4: Full list ° Day of and day before event (split into two runs)

• Other: Website, social media, sales referrals, etc.

TIPTHE DAY OF THE EVENT IS

THE BEST TIME TO DROP

PROMOTIONAL EMAILS

200+LIVE ATTENDEES

43%

56%

64%36%

36% 20% 9%

17% 7% 31%

16.5% 56 38 53 56

26%

15+ 8-14 1-7

19% 31% 24%

2010

AVERAGE

MIN MIN

DAYS DAYS DAYS

MIN MIN

REGISTANT TO LIVE ATTENDEE PROMOTIONAL CYCLE

BEST DAYS PROMO EMAILS

VIEWING TIME - LIVE

INTERACTIVITY

REGISTRATION PERCENTAGE

AVERAGE ATTENDEE RATE BEST TIME

ON-DEMAND VIEWERS - REG LIVE

ENGAGEMENT METRICS

NUMBER ATTENDING

ATTENDEES

EVENTS W/

2012 2013

17%

MON

23%

TUE

23%

WED

23%

THU

11%

FRI

2%

S/S

BEST DAYS PROMO EMAILS - PREVIOUS YEAR

17%

MON

23%

TUE

22%

WED

24%

THU

11%

FRI

2%

S/S

BEST DAYS WEBINAR ATTENDANCE

9%

MON

25%

TUE

28%

WED

28%

THU

7%

FRI

1%

S/S

BEST DAYS WEBINAR ATTENDANCE - PREVIOUS YEAR

10%

MON

27%

TUE

27%

WED

27%

THU

7%

FRI

1%

S/S

56MIN

2014

29MIN

ON-DEMAND VIEWING

9%

8.3%

VIEWED LIVE AND ON DEMAND

24%

POLLING

4%

GROUP CHAT

SUBMITTEDQUESTIONS

RESPONDEDTO POLLS

DOWNLOADEDCONTENT

REGISTER THEWEEK OF WEBINAR

REGISTER OVER ONEWEEK BEFORE WEBINAR

14%

SURVEYS

35%

SOCIAL

82%

Q&A

523ATTENDEES

43%AVERAGE

300+LIVE ATTENDEES

1000+LIVE ATTENDEES

500+LIVE ATTENDEES

4%

COLLABORATION

20.6%

ON-DEMAND REG. POST LIVE

20%

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS POST LIVE REGISTRATION

POST LIVE REGISTRATION TREND

REGISTRATIONS

300K

225K

150K

75K

WK 1 WK 3 WK 5 WK 7 WK 9 WK 110

PROPOSEDICONOGRAPHY

BENCHMARK REPORT

DAYOF

24%

11AM PST

18%

10AM PST

17%

12PM PST

13%

9AM PST

10%

8AM PST

INTEGRATION OF VIDEO

100+ATTENDEES

EVENTS W/

258ATTENDEES

5+


CONSISTENT CREATIVE7You have less than 20 seconds to catch someone’s

attention with an email. But even if you do catch it, your

job isn’t quite done. A lot of companies, even ones with

large and experienced marketing organizations, often

send out gorgeous HTML emails that lead to generic

registration forms. When the form doesn’t match the

email, it can confuse the recipient — and a confused

recipient is much less likely to fill out your form or show

up for your webinar.

All the components of your campaign, from email to

registration form to confirmation page, should share a

common look and feel. That means the logo, colors and

imagery should be consistent from piece to piece and

that the language should hit on common themes.

Of course that doesn’t mean that when you send a

plaintext email it should link to a text-only landing page.

That would be a terrible user experience. Instead, make

sure the copy of the plaintext email shares talking points

with the rest of the campaign, and try to move recipients

along to your stronger creative elements as soon as

you can.

TIPUSE CONSISTENT CREATIVE

THROUGH ALL PROMOTIONAL

COMMUNICATIONS


CONCLUSIONPeople these days are invited to more webinars than ever,

but your average B2B buyer might attend one webinar in a

month — if that. With so much competition for viewing time,

you may find yourself working harder to make your webinar

promotion stand out.

Remember that the art of registration is reaching your

audience at a moment of receptivity with a message that

resonates. So get creative, think about your target audience

and explore all the available possibilities for communicating

your message. With that in mind, you’ll build a promotional

strategy that will drive more webinar registration and help

you deliver more successful events.

© 2015 ON24, Inc. For more information on the benefits of the ON24 virtual environment, contact us at 877-202-9599 or visit www.on24.com.

ON24, INC.

201 THIRD STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103

877.202.9599 ON24.COM

ABOUT ON24, INC.

ON24 is the leading webinar marketing platform for demand generation, lead

qualification and customer engagement. Its award-winning, patented, cloud-

based platform enables companies of all sizes to deliver engaging live and on-

demand webinars. Providing industry-leading analytics that can be integrated with

all leading marketing automation and CRM platforms, ON24 enables marketers

to optimize demand generation, enhance lead qualification and accelerate sales

pipeline opportunities.

Additional applications for the ON24 product portfolio include virtual training,

talent development and town hall meetings. More than 1,000 enterprises rely on

ON24, including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Credit

Suisse and SAP. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices

throughout the world. For more information, visit ON24.com.

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7 Ways to ENHANCE YOUR WEBINAR PROMOTIONS - The … · 2016-04-08 · talk about your event in a completely different way. A well-written plaintext email can make the reader think